Sister Anne Rivers
Principal May 1976 – May 1979
Anne Rivers enrolled at SAC as a first-year high school student at St Aloysius in 1958. After completing her Leaving Certificate in 1961, Anne received the Holy Habit of the Order on August 27, 1962 and was admitted to Final Profession on November 12, 1967. An Honours graduate in music, Sr Anne spent some time in the South-East, teaching at Mater Christi College before returning to work at Angas Street.
In the mid 1970s, Sr Anne was appointed coordinator of the McAuley House program, a program for junior high school classes. This was eventually to be known as General Studies and as it evolved over time, as Integrated Studies.
In 1975, the Schools Commission provided funds for Sr Anne to spend ten weeks visiting schools and educators in Britain, France, Canada and the United States. Upon her return to Australia, she reported to the Commission that little that she observed on her travels overshadowed the education that was being provided in Adelaide by St Aloysius college.
In May 1976, Sr Anne was appointed principal of SAC. In her end of year reports to the school community, she detailed the objectives of the college and the means by which these objectives were to be achieved. Sr Anne also paid particular attention to the task of articulating the concept of Mercy. In her report of 1976, she spoke of ‘Mercy in its scriptural sense, perhaps best expressed in English as Loving-Kindness; a Loving-Kindness which has at its very centre a cry for Justice, a plea for gentleness, and a thirst for Peace.’
By Neville Stapleton
Archivist, St Aloysius College, 2020
